


take your time

by succubused



Category: Kingdom Hearts
Genre: Kingdom Hearts III Spoilers, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-20
Updated: 2019-07-20
Packaged: 2020-07-09 12:44:19
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,788
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19888030
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/succubused/pseuds/succubused
Summary: Isa wakes up and Lea is there to catch him.





	take your time

_You must be exhausted._

_I am._

If he had been asked a week ago, or even a day ago, Lea would have said that he would rather have died than return to this place, and it would have been the truth. Too many bitter memories, too many ghosts, both his own and those of others who had been twisted beyond recognition alongside him. Despite all outward appearances, he wanted nothing more than to leave Axel, and everything he had done, behind him. He wanted to be worthy of doing so.

And yet it always did surprise him, the lengths to which he was willing to go for Isa.

_Wouldn’t you like to stay here? To sleep?_

_Yes…but there is someone coming for me. I can’t stay._

He had expected the worst of it to be over, and in many ways it was. He had hoped to find Isa back in Radiant Garden, to discover him lying in the same room in which he himself had awoken once recompleted, maybe a little bit dazed, but theoretically safe with the others. But when he had arrived at the lab, Isa was once again nowhere to be found, and Lea realized too late how unlikely it was that his heart would have been taken there and then, with the risk of any of them waking up and interrupting. Of course they had moved him first.

_How can you know that?_

_I don’t._

Of course they would take him back _here_.

He had searched the badlands and the graveyard, trying not to think about what it meant that he was looking for Isa in a graveyard in the first place, trying to focus on what he _knew_ rather than how it had _felt_ to have him fade away in his arms. At least he hadn’t been alone. At least his heart had been his own in his final moments as Saïx.

Regardless of all symbolism, it quickly became apparent that Isa wasn’t there either, and the old frantic feeling that he recognized from the first time he had gone missing returned with equal speed. Even though it was foolish.

It had been Even who suggested it. Said that was where his own heart had been corrupted. Offered to go with him, but Lea refused, naturally.

_And yet I can see that you believe it’s true._

_I trust him._

A world that never was. A world that was, but never should have been. Either way, it was no longer a place for him, and it was no longer a place for Isa.

He had, of course, considered the possibility that Isa was simply gone.

The others had as well. They hadn’t said anything out loud, but he knew pity when he saw it, and the way they looked at him out of the corners of their eyes was heavy with it.

Everyone but Xion, who had caught him by the arm as he left and looked him in the eyes with that sorrow and hope that had always struck him as far too deep for a girl whose time in the world had been as short as hers. But he knew her loneliness came from the knowledge she carried, that she had known and felt things that no other soul would ever be able to understand, self-formed heart as she was. She could have been so angry. Instead she was just kind.

“You’ll find him,” she had said. “No one is ever really gone.”

“You don’t have to—” Lea shook his head. “You don’t have to. I—I appreciate it, but he, with you he…it was—”

“I know what it was.” She looked up at him seriously. “And I would really like to understand why, so get him back here so I can ask him about it, okay?”

Lea could barely conceive of the depth of Xion’s compassion, the forgiveness she appeared to be capable of. Forgiveness she extended even towards those who likely didn’t deserve it yet, but was willing to believe in until they showed her that they did. People who had treated her as an object, sometimes because they didn’t know any better, sometimes because they didn’t care.

As he made his way through the halls, still so blinding in their unforgiving brightness, he wondered if he had tried hard enough to make Saïx see the truth about her. If things might have been different had he succeeded. Lea had finally seen an empty replica recently, the one that Even was working on repairing for Namine, and the blank, dead face had made him nauseous, knowing that was what Saïx had been seeing where Xion should have been.

Saïx had been too jealous to ask or to listen. And Axel had been too lonely in the wake of their crumbling relationship, too willing to throw himself entirely into anything at all that could make him smile again, and once he had been reminded what that could feel like, it had been hard to even look Saïx in the eyes, feeling the loss of that love all too acutely. It was still there; he could see that now, from the other side. It would have been impossible for them to hurt each other so deeply if it were not. But it was a wounded thing, poisoned by envy and hopelessness and anger.

They had given up so much for one another, and in the end, it hadn’t been enough.

_Are you afraid?_

_Of?_

_Going back._

_Of course I am._

Lea stared up at the towering thrones, white pillars where they had once sat and waited, never quite knowing for what. He had half expected to find Isa in his old seat, legs crossed and hands locked together to keep them from shaking. None of the others had ever known that was his reason for being so tightly held together, and Axel had never told a soul. Saïx, like Isa, relied on appearing as though he had no doubts. About himself, about his plans, about any of it.

And yet he had been so afraid. And fear made him angry. And anger made it easier for Xemnas to sink his poison deeper and deeper into the heart he refused to acknowledge he had.

He shuddered, remembering the telltale glow of his silhouette, the emptiness behind those shining yellow eyes. The flat fury on his face that held nothing to suggest that the man he remembered was anywhere inside, the heavy blade held above him, ready to fall and end the life that had once been lived for he who wielded it.

But it never did.

No matter how many times he had come close, he was never able to finish it.

He leaned his forehead against the doorframe when he reached his old room, closing his eyes at the familiar touch of cold metal. Remembering the number of times Saïx had found him here, in the beginning, curled into a ball on the floor, trying to make himself as small as possible so that his tears wouldn’t feel like a weakness.

_You’re just remembering,_ Saïx had said, pulling Axel to his feet. _I asked Vexen. He said this could happen. It’s still possible to cry. The memories of your emotions are evoking a physical response._

_You told—_ Axel wrenched his arm away. _You told him I was crying?_

Saïx looked at him. _No_ , he said evenly. _I said that I was._

_…Oh. Really?_

_Yes._

For a moment, they were silent.

Axel laughed shakily. _Can’t I just…hit the kill switch or something? Wasn’t emptying out supposed to get rid of all this crap?_

_You need to be strong. It’s the only way._

_Specific. Any ideas on how?_

Saïx smiled at him, small and sad but real, even in those days already an expression all too rare. He placed his hands on the sides of Axel’s face, resting his thumbs underneath his eyes.

_Get some upside down tears. Marks right here. Keep you from crying._

Axel chuckled despite himself. _You think?_

_Oh, of course._

When he opened his eyes and saw the figure slumped against the wall, the flash of blue hair that told him everything he needed to know, he felt for a moment as though he should have anticipated that this was the only place he could possibly be.

“ _Isa!_ ”

Lea fell to his knees at Isa’s side once more, his heart pounding when he saw the unconscious face. He was breathing, but his eyes were only half open, staring at the ground with a blank look that scared him more than any rage ever could. It was impossible to tell what color his irises were.

“Isa. It’s over. It’s safe.”

When he brushed Isa’s cheek with the back of his hand, his skin was cold. He had always ran much colder than Lea, of course. But he didn’t want to think about how long Isa had been lying here. How long he had been waiting.

“Wake up. Come back.”

He pulled Isa back into his lap and held him as he had the dying Saïx, trying to bring him back down the same way he had set him free.

“Please,” Lea whispered.

_Time to go?_

_Time to go._

_Good luck._

And Isa returned to life in the same way that Saïx had left it; in Lea’s arms.

For a moment they stared at each other, Lea trying to process the enormous kick of relief that had swept through his body, Isa more disoriented than anything else, unable to recognize the warmth in his chest for what it was. He blinked up at Lea, realizing for the first time what it meant that he was there, with a body and a beating heart and an intact soul.

“You’re alive,” Isa breathed. “You’re all right.”

“I— _me?_ ” He laughed in disbelief. “You—you’re talking about—when you just—”

“You _are_ alive? This isn’t some sort of…”

“Isa…” Lea pulled him up to a sitting position, still gripping him tightly by the shoulders, correctly assuming that if he let go Isa was at risk of collapsing again. “If you think _this_ is heaven, you either have shit standards or those three hit you harder than I thought they did.”

“Both are likely true, but fortunately injuries don’t appear to carry over.” He winced at the memory. “Xion may have cracked a rib. Can’t quite find it in my h—”

Lea watched his frozen face curiously as he stared down at his hands with an incomprehensible expression.

“In my heart,” Isa murmured after a prolonged pause. “Can’t quite find it in my heart to blame her.”

“In your heart,” Lea repeated slowly. He pressed his hand against Isa’s chest, feeling for the heartbeat he knew so well, even after ten years. The rapid thump greeted him like the old friend it was. Always so much quicker than you would expect from an exterior that lacked any sort of ripples, as Isa’s seemed to, if you didn’t know where to look. “Isa, what _happened_? Are you hurt?”

“What do you mean?”

“You should have been able to wake up straight off. We all did.”

“Even didn’t.”

“He—oh.” He thought about it for a moment. “I guess he didn’t.”

“The damage,” Isa said delicately, “was particularly severe, in both his case and my own. Not physically,” he added upon seeing the stricken look on Lea’s face. “Just needed to be called home.”

“Well…” Lea slid down the wall beside him with a soft _thump_. “Did say I’d drag you home too.”

“I’ll be all right in a moment.”

“Take your time.”

He snorted, looking at the ceiling. “While we’re here? I would rather not.” When he lowered his eyes, Lea was staring at him intently. “What?”

Lea blinked. “Your eyes.”

His heart sank. _Impossible._ “You don’t mean—”

“No, I mean _your_ eyes. They’re yours.”

Isa leaned forward carefully to get a good look at the window, watching for his own face in the dark glass. He had seen his yellow eyes for the first time in this room, had stared in mute horror as Axel tried to get an answer out of him as to what had happened, _where did you go, what happened to your eyes, what happened to your face._

The cyclical shape of it all struck him when he caught his own eye and found green there instead.

“I certainly hope they’re— _why_ are you looking at me like that?”

“I’m—I hated seeing you—I never want to see you like that again,” Lea said.

Isa chuckled under his breath. “It wasn’t so bad, that time, actually.”

“You were—I haven’t seen you in that much pain since—”

“Maybe so,” he said quietly, “but at least, this time, I wasn’t alone.”

Lea watched him as he looked around at the colorless room, expression impassive, eyes haunted.

“This time’?” he said at last, when it became apparent Isa would not break the silence on his own.

“The last time I had to fade in such a way,” Isa said, knuckles white where his hands had knotted reflexively into fists, “I was…very much alone. I can’t remember a time when I felt more alone.”

_You died alone. You died afraid._

“You remember what it feels like when your body goes, I’m sure.”

“Yeah.” Lea shuddered. “Wish I didn’t.”

A lead weight at the bottom of his stomach. What felt like a thousand hands pulling at him from all directions while feathers tried to lift his skin from the inside.

“I was ready to die on my feet again,” Isa muttered. “I didn’t expect you to be there. I didn’t expect you to catch me.”

“What, you—you thought I’d just sit there and watch you—”

“I thought you were already lost to me.”

“I wasn’t.”

“I know. I know.”

“I’m so sorry, Isa.”

“For what?”

“I wasn’t there for you. It kills me that you had to go through all of that alone.”

Isa looked down at his hands. “I didn’t want to be,” he said after a moment.

He continued to watch as Lea reached for them, allowing him to pull one of his hands into his lap and hold it in both of his own. He held it much too tightly, but that was just Lea. Always afraid that if he didn’t sink his teeth in far enough Isa might slip away again. It was difficult to blame him, considering that at least once his fears had been proven to be grounded.

“It felt—” His grip tightened further. “Felt like you didn’t want me back at all.”

“Oh.” Isa laughed weakly. “Oh, I did. More than anything. It was eating me alive.”

“Then _why—_ ”

“I knew it was only going to get worse,” he said. “And as hard as it was living without you, losing you a second time would have been more than I could take. I figured if I never had you back, at least…you couldn’t take yourself away again.”

“Isa, that’s horrible.”

“It’s the truth.”

They looked at their fingers, laced so tightly through one another’s that they were both beginning to go numb, but neither had even the slightest inclination to let go.

“I don’t want to be in this place anymore,” Isa said. “I would like to leave.”

Lea nodded. “Get up together, okay?”

“Yeah.”

He pulled Isa to his feet, where he swayed a little but steadied after realizing there was someone beside him waiting to support the weight he couldn’t take.

“Hey, one second.”

Isa turned. “What—”

It had been years since he had been kissed. It was so easy to forget how soft of a feeling it was when his memories of love had become so harsh, when towards the end Saïx and Axel had been more given to drawing blood than sharing what little warmth they did have. And Lea was, of course, more than warm, more like a compact wildfire with the heat he gave off. He had been so cold, for so long.

But Lea was there, and he burned like the sun, and he kissed Isa like it was the first and last thing he would ever do, and the pressure of it made both of them feel more real than they had in a decade.

“What was that for?” Isa said breathlessly when they finally came up for air.

Lea grinned, arms still locked around his waist. “Axel and Saïx had their first kiss in here, remember?”

Isa blinked. He had forgotten entirely, but it occurred to him that Lea was right.

“So Lea and Isa…”

Isa laughed out loud. “You’re ridiculous,” he told Lea, and pulled his face down to kiss him again.


End file.
